The Next PlayStation Is Called Orbis, Sources Say. Here Are The Details.

While the official reveal of Sony's next home console could still be months away, if not longer, Kotaku has today learned some important details concerning the PlayStation 3's successor.

For one, the console's name — or at least its codename/working title — is apparently Orbis. And it's being planned for release in time for the 2013 holiday season.

The details in this story come from a reliable source who is not authorised to talk publicly about next-gen hardware but has shared correct information with us before. What they're telling us in specifics matches much of what we've heard and reported in generalities in recent weeks.

WHAT'S IN A NAME

Orbis. Say it out loud. Sounds a little like the word "four", doesn't it? Only it doesn't make the next PlayStation sound like a bad horror movie sequel.

It's also a name loaded with meaning. The word "Orbis" itself, from Latin, means circle, or ring, or even orbit. Not terribly helpful. Combine it with the name of Sony's new handheld system, though, and you have the common term Orbis Vita (or, in strict Latin, Orbis Vitae). Which means "The circle of life". Could the Vita be playing a very important role in the development and use of the next PlayStation home console? Maybe!

Such symbolism also suggests that rather than being a codename, like most companies employ when still developing a console (think NGP, or Durango), this might actually be the machine's final name. We don't know that, though, so keep an open mind about things.

CURRENT SPECS

Our main source supplied some basic specs for the console, but as the future is always in motion, bear in mind these could easily change between now and the Orbis' retail release. Still, if you'd like to know what developers are being told to plan for now, here you go.

The former, that's largely something we've heard before, but the latter is interesting. That's the name given to many of AMD's 2012 roster of high-end PC cards. The PS4's GPU in particular, we're told, will be capable of displaying Orbis games at a resolution of up to 4096x2160, which is far in excess of the needs of most current HDTV sets. It'll also be capable of playing 3D games in 1080p (the PS3 could only safely manage 3D at 720p).

NEXT YEAR

Our main source tell us that "select developers" have been receiving dev kits for the new console since the beginning of this year. Revised and improved versions of these kits were sent out around GDC, while more finalised beta units will be shipped to developers towards the end of 2012.

That should hopefully give developers plenty of time to have launch games ready for the Orbis' retail release, which will be in time for the 2013 holiday season. If you can remember the PS3 launch — it's OK if you can't, it was a while ago — that too was in time for the holiday shopping season (November 2006 for Japan and North America).

SO LONG, PS3 GAMES

Remember how the PlayStation 3 swiftly dropped the ability to play PS2 games? Well, our main source tell us the Orbis won't even bother, and that Sony has no plans to offer backwards compatibility for its existing catalogue of PS3 games.

SO LONG, USED GAMES

BACK IN DECEMBER... A post left on Pastebin back in December also referred to the PlayStation 4 as Orbis, calling it a codename in the same vein as Microsoft's Durango. The system specs in that post differ significantly from what Kotaku has heard, and the lack of a hard drive by default goes against the idea of downloading full games to the system.

The Pastebin post also mentions that big name developers like EA were disappointed by an Orbis much less powerful than Microsoft's next machine, so there's a chance that it's the story of an earlier prototype that didn't make the grade. We've reached out to EA for comment.

Just like the next Xbox/Durango, we've heard from multiple sources that the Orbis will likewise have some kind of anti-used games measures built into the console. Here's how our main source says it's currently shaping up: new games for the system will be available one of two ways, either on a Blu-Ray disc or as a PSN download (yes, even full retail titles). If you buy the disc, it must be locked to a single PSN account, after which you can play the game, save the whole thing to your HDD, or peg it as "downloaded" in your account history and be free to download it at a later date.

Don't think you can simply buy the disc and stay offline, though; like many PC games these days, you'll need to have a PSN account and be online to even get the thing started.

If you then decide to trade that disc in, the pre-owned customer picking it up will be limited in what they can do. While our sources were unclear on how exactly the pre-owned customer side of things would work, it's believed used games will be limited to a trial mode or some other form of content restriction, with consumers having to pay a fee to unlock/register the full game.

That's all we've got for you at the moment. Remember, none of this information is confirmed, and even the information that is locked down in March 2012 may change before the console's eventual release. This is just what we've been told Sony is working on and planning for as of today. That being the case, how do you think it's shaping up?

There is a obvious reason for this. Developers have said multiple times the PS3 is extremely tricky to develop on and that is mainly caused by the systems "multiple core" architecture. Unless Sony wanted to go down the same route again, which they won't, it is going to be pretty much impossible to emulate PS3 games on another console.

At the very least your PSN games should be backwards compatible. If M$ doesn't carry over existing XBLA games into the next gen they can kiss this customer goodbye. The PS3 not staying BC was one of the reasons I didn't get it (after having a PS2) If they had've kept compatibility I would've had more of an incentive to upgrade, as it is though I had to consider all 3 consoles easily.

Note that BC isn't the be all and end all though because I did have a gamecube but never bought a Wii, but mostly because the upgrade was minimal!

I don't like the locking of the game to a single account... so basically, if I buy a game, I play it, I finish it, and then my wife wants to play it, she won't be able to use her own PSN account, she'd have to either use mine, or buy a second copy of the game?

It seems to me that all these developers (both game and console) are starting to treat their customers with contempt.

The best thing about the current generation has been personal accounts. That way I didn't have to worry anymore about family members accidentally messing with or deleting my saved games. To now have to have my kids and husband play on my account so we didn't have to buy unnecessary multiple copies of a game is a huge step backwards and one I will not willingly go along with.

It's somewhat there already with the PSV, if I really wanted to develop my online distro platform and make it the first-choice stop rather than a hard copy place (which I guess most publishers/distros do), I'd see how much I'm saving by not making a physical product (30% maybe?) and make the digi copy cheaper by most of that.

A 20% price drop for buying it digitally would be a good sweetener, and set them up to face a strong backlash from retailers when they refuse to stock product due to no used games potential/cheaper pricing online.

Some actually are. Not all the publishers on Steam kow-tow to the Aussie retail pressure.

What kind of savings a publisher passes on for digital distribution is my litmus test for whether they're assholes or not, now.

Check http://www.steamprices.com/au/topsavings for a list of stuff we can get cheaper than the US folks can, via Steam. It's not as long or as high-impact a list as the flip-side to that list:
http://www.steamprices.com/au/topripoffs

Zap, the difference between a PC (Steam) and PS3 games are: normally you'd be the only person using your 'personal' computer. However PS3 has, and always been, marketing as a family-shared entertainment unit. If I pop in that God of War CD it would have my save, my brother's save and my dad's save. However if I pop HL2 on the PC it would likely be mine only.

In this case the Steam DRM makes sense and the PS3 one is way too restrictive for a family unit thing. Unless of course they allow you to link your PSN acocunts to other people - say a max of 5 people can be linked together to create a shared account, or the game can be linked to 5 acocunts. Barring this, it would be heaps inconvenient for everyone involved.

When you purchase used games, the developer makes no money. The publisher makes no money. The console producer makes no money.
This is a way of ensuring that this ends. If you sell games with a sort of 1-use license, and make used-games require the purchaser to get a cheap ($5-10) license to play it, then you ensure that the developers, publishers, etc get paid when the game gets sold.

the problem with this is that while they have "made their money" on that copy of the game, when someone buys that used copy, they are *not* buying a new copy, from which the devs/publishers would get their cut.

I really don't think it'll be unable to play used games. As long as there's physical media, there will be used games. I think the actual outcome will be more like a mandatory "online pass" type situation where every game has an activation code that needs to be redeemed to be able to play it. Buy a used game and you'll just have to pay extra for an online pass for it. Considering the online pass thing is rapidly becoming ubiquitous anyway, even on current hardware, this should come as a surprise to nobody.

I think you'll find something very similar on the next XBox, too - I'm sure most/all of the major publishers would be pushing the platform holders pretty hard for some kind of action against pre-owned games in the next gen.

I'd assume it's a development from the PSP and PS3 getting hacked so hard this generation. Locking games to one account, that has to be verified online through their server before play, is probably a fairly strong anti-piracy measure.

Also, I guess because publishers/developers are of the strong opinion that used sales hurts them. If Sony are releasing a console, they probably need to make sure that the publishers/developers will release games on it - if they have this system and MS/Ninty don't, they'll certainly see some developers jumping ship to them.

Plus, I really do think they've taken a look at the Steam model and thought to themselves "That's really popular. Why not do that? Gamers seem okay with it"

I don't love Steam.
And I hate the idea of a game being locked to one account. I have a family. So I'd have to buy four copies of a game so everyone on my family could play it. This is another case of screwing over proper paying customers for reasons that have nothing to do with them.
At least with Steam the games are reasonable prices, but four copies of a $60+ game? That's impossible to justify in any family budget.

It may work like the Xbox - If I have an XBLA game (which is similarly tied to my account) all other accounts using that console can play it (I've tested this by downloading my gamertag and a bunch of my games on my brother's console)

I don't really like the account locking on Steam. But the thing is - Steam has competition and consequently the prices are a lot better on Steam than the PSN. If each console is a closed market, the prices are going to be garbage, AND you can't even share. For me, that'll be a strong push to PC gaming.

No plans for backwards compatibility? fuck you sony, FUCK YOU. It was bad enough when they dropped it from the ps3 and made us buy our favourite titles again as digital copies or as re-released overblown box editions, but to make us do it AGAIN? Fuck knows that the ps3's hardware doesn't last that long, so it's not like keeping it around to play ps3 games is an option, mine is only 4 years old and is on it's last legs.

And what is it bringing to the table that's new? displaying games that run in 4096×2160 which far exceeds the output of even high end tvs? Well that's handy. What else they got?.... NOTHING. C'mon sony give me SOMETHING to look forward to.

While those aren't the ... words I'd choose, I can understand the sentiment, I'm getting to that point where I should probably consider buying a new PS3 (mine is a now extremely, extremely loud phat, that has noticeably longer load times than my mate's slim). The idea that there might be new consoles announced in the fairly near future naturally puts me off the idea of throwing down the money for another console of this generation this late, but if it turns out there's no backwards compatibility I'm basically looking at having to purchase a new PS3 AND an Orbis if I want to both continue to play new games and safeguard my collection.

Then there's the ability to simply chuck an old game in the new system instead of needing to go find, plug in, probably set up, your old PS3 to play a game, at the end of a long day if I feel like doing a Human Revolution run through on PS3 but my PS3 is in storage somewhere, I'm probably just going to leave it.
Ultimately it's not something they need to include, it's not the end of the world, and I'm not going to kick an scream about it, but backwards compatibility is a relatively important feature for me and one that could help to sell the system for some people. Certainly without it I'm FAR more likely to wait a good 2 years before picking up a new console, till the price has dropped and the library is decent.

The PS3 uses a Cell Broadband CPU and the PS2 uses 'Emotion Engine' while this new one is rumoured to contain a x64 AMD. These are three COMPLETELY different CPUs that require different programming procedures to support the different architectures. It is not a software thing and in order to create an emulator on the new system would cost a lot of money and would not guarantee to work for all games so it would require on going support for something that is not going to give anything in return for the company and something that will not operate at its full potential in the first place.

Sony came to your house and held a gun to your head and made you re-purchase your PS2 games instead of just continuing to play them on the PS2? Man, that sucks. They haven't got around to me, yet - I'll have to be more careful when I open the front door in future. Thanks for the heads up!

"And what is it bringing to the table that’s new? displaying games that run in 4096×2160 which far exceeds the output of even high end tvs? Well that’s handy. What else they got?…. NOTHING. C’mon sony give me SOMETHING to look forward to"

Errr.... you're aware that this isn't an official Sony announcement, right? This is some guy who may or may not know what he's talking about, providing (partial) information that may or may not be true, and even if it's true today it might not still be true when this thing actually launches more than 18 months from now (assuming that part of it was true).

Stuff doesn't last forever - i'm aware of that - and consoles seem to be the worst culprit of this, but by NOT having backwards compatibility and making consoles that seem to only last 4-5 years (which seems a bit meh when you compare it to something like my old dvd player which is still going strong at 7+ years for example) it means if i want to play a game i bought for $100 a few years ago then i will have to buy another console (because the one i have dies at the 41/2 year mark) and another version of the game, only to end up with exactly the same (albeit slightly improved graphics) experience.

no one is FORCING me to do anything, but by not taking into it consideration (or actively taking it into consideration to squeeze more dollars out of us) and ridding the new hardware of backwards compatibility and making consoles that only last a few years, it isn't giving me much of a choice if i just want to play some goddamn MGS. I understand this is a great way for them to make money, but it doesn't mean I have to like it.

Fair enough this article is only speculation at best, but still what else can sony really bring to the table? a kinect rip off? social media tie in bullsh*t? WHO CARES. Why not spend the time and effort to do heaps of r&d and come up with something that is more of a leap forward. I'm not that excited by a developing trend that seems to be much like mobile phone manufacturers releases, more models, more often with less and less difference in quality and advancement each time. I HOPE it doesn't come out rushed or half baked to compete with whatever Microsoft is going to prematurely spit out. Oh and somewhat affordable, that would be nice.

Or: they've seen how popular and supported the Steam approach is on the PC platform, and adopted it due to everyone loving it.

That's what people want, right? They complain that Steam is the pinnacle of digidistro and everyone should just use them on all systems. If they've copied it directly, that means it'll be supported, right? They're only doing what everyone wants.

im a little concerned about being online constantly to play the game why not (as many people have already said) and do something like steam where you can register a game with your account but be able to use the account in offline mode so you can play the game without being online

My brother and i borrow games off each other all the time to give it a burl. in a lot of cases this has resulted in one of us buying the game. if this is what they plan on doing it could mean less sales from some people instead.

Yeah, sometimes I unplug my wifi just so I can go on my xbox or PS3 in peace without constant party invites and people logging on/off, or the annoying bleep bloop noises that make me think I've got an achievement. Sometimes I just want to be left alone! :(

You can only compete so much when its the publisher selling the games at these ridiculous prices, Have you forgotten that game traders had to import games to compete simply because Nintendo etc all sell the games at ludicrous special Australian prices?

Why is the future according to publishers always dystopic? We have no rights, we own nothing, we must jump through hoops.. well guess what? we're leaving orbit..we don't need you any more. we can work with our favorite devs directly now.

I don't get how they'll know how individual discs have been used, unless they each come with individual codes which ... I guess that could work. No more EB returns, though. "Yes, this game is new, although you may have to purchase an online pass to make it play." They already see enough of that with Battlefield multiplayer unlock codes, REsistance 3 codes, etc ...
To be honest I won't be in the least bit surprised if all of these rumours come into fruition. WHilst I don't necessarily like them, I recognize that it's THEIR system, which THEY make the rules for, and if I want one I'll just have to suck it up and tolerate the irritation. The amount of people they piss off enough into not buying the system will be outweighed by the amount of money they save by locking out pre-owned, I suspect.

While it's easy to get outraged about the used games thing, they're basically just following the path that the PC has been on for years. Steam locks the game to your account, physical media requires CD keys to activate (and are now usually tied to a Steam/Origin account).

If Sony and Microsoft lock things down too much for my liking, then I just won't buy their stupid consoles.

"Just like the next Xbox/Durango, we’ve heard from multiple sources that the Orbis will likewise have some kind of anti-used games measures built into the console."
Welcomre to the video game crash Ver. 2.0
Sure CD keys and locked steam accounts work now but remember how bad the PC game scene was say 4-7 years ago?All those "PC games are dead" remarks and stories?
It will be a rough transition ,many customers wont upgrade and some companies who will spend a fortune developing on new Gen will collapse.And dont forget not everyone has the internet at home, somepeople just use their works or have a smartphone or tablet with 3G.

I reckon it's been coming (the next crash) for some time - as it is there's a hollowing out occuring in the market but most of the factors are economic (ie: lots of people in the US and Europe out of work therefore only the big games are raking in the dollars) but something like the anti-used measures might push it over the edge - also there's no guarantee that people will be clamouring to move on to the next gen or that the world economy will be any better in 2013 (you'dhope it would be but this GFC crap has been going since 2008 or something now!!)

I can understand their desire to lock away games, because the issue is not so much sharing a game in a family as it is people opening their PSN account on a PS3 at someone else's house and then that person having a copy of every single game the other one has ever purchased. That sort of thing is costing developers money too, it's not just about Sony.
They need to come up wth a comprimise, like locking a game to a specific PS3 system serial number, and then having something like Xbox does where if you PS3 dies you can move your account to a brand new system and still have all your data. That way anyone who makes an account on your PS3 system can play the game with their own data, but it stops people from sharing games all over the shop.

I do NOT however, understand no backwards compatibilty. There is going to have to be some ridicuously fantastic new features on an Orbis to make that idea viable. So far i'm settling at 'meh' about it.

I own all current consoles but I'm still more a sony and nintendo fanboy, so I'll be buying the WiiU and the new playstation even if they do these changes. I kinda hope to be able to play ps3 games on it but if not its not a big thing for me. Either is preowned games since I think I've bought maybe 5 preowned games ever and that was more when I was a kid, so for years now I have always bought new. ( I like "clean" games) I worked at Ebgames and some preowned games were filthy and disgusting.

As for xbox I was going to buy the new limited edition star wars console to replace my old one but I think it might not be worth it with new consoles coming from sony and microsoft next year being a possibility.

What if Sony allowed psn accounts to join groups. These groups can’t change members and have a maximum of say…..5 accounts. Within that group anyones games would work – this will mean that your family is covered as well as a couple friends and still makes it impossible for used game sales.

Are they going to keep making games??
Some times, as an adult I have to spend my money on things other than games. This means I cant always buy a game when it comes out and I have to wait a few months to buy it. Sometimes by the time I have the money and motivation to buy a game and there is nothing newer I want the only option is second hand games market.

Also the whole benefit of console gaming is simplicity. My PC is great, I love it but dam it can be temperamental and tedious sometimes. Consoles use to be a one step deal, "put game in machine", now console too have downloads, patches, updates and now DRM. If it keeps going I might just not bother and stick to my Monster gaming PC.

Couldnt agree more , if both companies go down the path of no secondhand and always online why would i bother buying a console it would be cheaper to just use my pc at the moment i love the xbox but i could easily become a pc gamer.

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